Penton was an information services and marketing company.Bill Mickey, "Penton Launches New Data Solutions Division" Folio 24 March 2014 The company's three largest revenue streams came from events, digital and marketing services.Bill Mickey, "Penton Rebrands Itself as Information Services Business." Folio, 11 November 2014. Although Penton had a long history (see below) as a trade publisher, in 2015 it reported that 35% of its EBITDA derived from digital products, 54% from events, and 11% from print."Investor Relations" penton.com, retrieved 20 February 2015. The main industry segments served by Penton include agriculture, transportation, natural products/food, infrastructure, and design and manufacturing.
The company was descended from Penton Publishing, founded by John Penton in Cleveland in 1904 to bring together production of several trade magazine titles, including Foundry, which he had created in Detroit in 1892."Penton Media," The Encyclopedia of Cleveland History. 2004; retrieved 2 January 2015. However, after the Penton/Prism merger, the company is now headquartered in New York City,About Penton. retrieved 30 December 2007. although it continues to maintain offices in Cleveland and other U.S. cities, with an employee base of approximately 1,350 people.Penton office locations retrieved 30 December 2007
Due to reduced advertising sales as customers shifted to digital media from print, Penton went through "pre-packaged" bankruptcy reorganization in 2010."Penton Media gets bankruptcy plan OK, to exit soon. ". Reuters. 5 March 2010.Steve Smith, "Penton Emerges from Bankruptcy. ". Min. 10 March 2010.
On September 15, 2016, it was announced that Penton was to be bought by UK based company Informa for $1.56 billion. The sale closed on November 2, 2016. Penton was integrated into Informa Business Intelligence in 2017.
Early history
Penton's history began with two Cleveland companies, Penton Publishing Co., founded by John A. Penton—an iron molder by trade"Penton Media, Inc. History" Funding Universe retrieved 10 January 2015—in 1904, and the Industrial Publishing Co. John Penton had been involved in publishing trade magazines since 1887, creating Foundry in Detroit (1892), and then the Iron and Steel Press Co in Cleveland (1901). In Cleveland, he also published The Iron Trade Review, which became IndustryWeek.
By the 1920s, the company was a large business magazine publisher, for several years printing "Time" under contract.Encyclopedia of Cleveland History, 2004 Between 1938 and 1945, Penton helped the United States Census establish the Standard Industrial Classification system, a digital coding system for industries."Penton Media, Inc. History" Funding Universe retrieved 10 January 2015
Penton was owned by Pittway from 1976 to 1998.
Content Penton's global headquarters was in the Penton Media Building in Downtown Cleveland, Ohio from 2000 to 2006.
Numerous corporate acquisitions, sales, and mergers have occurred over the years. Wasserstein & Co. purchased Prism Business Media from Primedia (now Rent Group) in August 2005 for $385 million. Prism Business Media was then merged when Wasserstein purchased Penton Media in November 2006 for $194 million."Penton Media gets bankruptcy plan OK, to exit soon " Reuters 5 March 2010 The combined entity took the Penton Media name, later dropping the "Media" part."Prism Completes Penton Acquisition" AdAge 12 February 2007 After the merger, Penton became one of the largest B2B media companies in the world."John French, Penton Media" AdAge 16 July 2007
In late 2010, Penton acquired Nation's Restaurant News. In early 2011, Penton sold Mix, Electronic Musician, Radio, and Sound & Video Contractor magazines to NewBay Media."Newbay Media Acquires Mix, Electronic Musician, Radio, And Sound & Video Contractor From Penton," Pro Sound News , Feb 2011
Also in 2011, Penton acquired EyeTraffic Media, an online marketing firm. This was Penton's first marketing services acquisition.Casey Welton, "Penton Buys Marketing Services Agency EyeTraffic Media" Folio 10 March 2011. Also in 2011, Penton acquired Nine Lives Media, an IT publisher with industry-related blogs.Stephanie Botelho, "Penton Acquires IT Publisher Nine Lives Media" Folio, 30 August 2011. In 2012, Penton acquired Highline LP of the United Kingdom, adding to its digital aviation business.Bill Micket, "Penton Buys U.K.-Based Highline" Folio 25 June 2012. and Penton acquired Farm Progress from Fairfax Media Limited of Sydney, Australia, expanded its agriculture sector becoming the lead in agriculture information and marketing solutions.Bill Mickey, "Penton Acquires Farm Progress Companies for $79.9 Million" Folio 13 November 2012.
Additionally in 2012, Penton's Technology Media Group went all digital.Sean Callahan, "Penton's technology media group to go all-digital" Ad Age BtoB 27 February 2012. In the same year, David Kieselstein became CEO and was tasked with broadening Penton's digital solutions, entering new industry sectors, and exploring growth markets.Bill Mickey, "Penton Hires David Kieselstein as CEO" Folio 30 January 2012.
In April 2013, Penton acquired myITforum.com, an online community for Microsoft Management professionals. In the same month, Penton published the final issue of California Farmer, California's oldest farm magazine. Stating that the magazine wasn't as profitable as its other publications, Penton merged it with another property, Western Farm Press.Finz, Stacy. "California Farmer Magazine Ends Its Run". SFGate, 26 April 2013.
In August 2013, Penton acquired Aviation Week from McGraw Hill Financial.Bill Mickey, "Penton Buys Aviation Week from McGraw Hill" Folio, 24 July 2013. In October 2013, Penton announced that Broadcast Engineering magazine would cease publication after 54 years."Broadcast Engineering Magazine Shuts Down" TV Technology 28 October 2013. In January 2015, Penton acquired iNET Interactive, a Cincinnati-based event and digital information company, focused on the cloud computing, hosting and data center segments.Erin Caproni, "Cincinnati IT company acquired by tech giant" Cincinnati Business Courier 16 January 2015.
Subsequent acquisitions include World Tea Media (producer of the World Tea Expo), MRO Network (an online media outlet for the global aviation maintenance, repair, and operations community), and TU-Automotive (an automotive technology hub).Bill Mickey, "Penton Buys World Tea Media From F+W" Folio October 6, 2015Bill Mickey, "Penton Expands Aviation Portfolio with MRO Network Acquisition" Folio November 3, 2015Greg Dool, "http://www.foliomag.com/2016/penton-acquires-tu-automotive/" Folio January 4, 2016
Data solutions Despite its long history as a trade publisher, in March 2014 Penton moved towards monetizing its large (then 16 million records) database to support marketing campaigns.Bill Mickey, "Penton Launches New Data Solutions Division" Folio, 24 March 2014. In order to do so, it created the Penton SmartReach division to sell subscriber data directly rather than through third-party list vendors.Bill Mickey, "Penton Launches New Data Solutions Division" Folio, 24 March 2014. As of 2016, the database had grown to some 20 million records.
Penton analyses publicly available data for customers in industry sectors including agriculture, transportation, food, design and manufacturing, and infrastructure. One of Penton's data tools, NEXT Trend, for example, provided analysis for the natural products and food industry. In 2014, it predicted 50 percent growth by 2018 in the healthy, organic, and natural products market.Jessica Wohl, "Wal-Mart aims to push organic foods into mainstream" Chicago Tribune, 10 April 2014; Beth Kowitt, "Whole Foods takes over America" Fortune, 10 April 2014. NEXT Trend also makes data-based predictions about the market for specific ingredients, such as chia.Donna Berry, "Chia gaining ground as an ingredient" Fortune Business News 25 March 2014.
NEXT Accelerator is an online community for natural product entrepreneurs. It has been described as "an online portal open to anyone building a natural products startup...with video content and reading materials, worksheets, legal templates and regulatory documents and supplier and vendor information that can help young companies start and grow."Laura Baverman, "An accelerator re-imagined for moms, foods and natural products" The Business Journals: Upstart, 25 September 2013. Members also have access to a vetted list of service providers such as packaging vendors, branding consultants, and attorneys with relevant experience.Nina Meijers, "New Hope Launches NEXT Accelerator for Natural Products Startups" Food Tech Connect 1 October 2013; Laura Baverman, "Entrepreneurs find success in natural products" USA Today 14 October 2014.
Govalytics captures and analyzes data generated by U.S. city and county governments for vendors marketing to municipalities.Jim Sturdivant, "Industry Update: Penton Launches Govalytics" , 3 December 2013. The company plans to expand coverage to the top 100 metropolitan statistical areas.Casey Welton, "Penton Introduces Data Tool, Govalytics" Folio, 3 December 2013.
Events In addition to trade publishing and data solutions, Penton runs an events portfolio based on some of its media offerings, serving vendors and customers in the aviation, agriculture, and natural products segments. These include a series of Aviation Week MRO conferences,;Patrick Castleberry, "Great Show – Aviation Week's MRO Americas 2013" Air Vault 19 April 2013 the Farm Progress show;Donelle Eller, "5 things to watch at Farm Progress Show" Des Moines Register 23 August 2014; Aaron Hepker and Reid Chandler, "2014 Farm Progress Show Kicks Off" NBC WhoTV 26 August 2014. and the Natural Products Expos.Mary McVean, "Natural Products Expo West harvests snacks, discusses labeling" LA Times 14 March 2014; Chris Kilham, "New trends in natural products showcased at industry expo" Fox News 12 March 2014
References
Further reading The History of Penton Publishing, Cleveland, Ohio: Penton Publishing, 1994.
External links (Archive), see official website which redirect to Informa Website)